Vegetables contribute more than 12% of our daily sodium. This seems surprising, but potato chips and french fries are vegetables. And canned vegetables, vegetable soups, and vegetable sauces tend to be loaded with salt.

Basic U.S. dietary guidelines suggest that adults get less than 2,300 milligrams of salt each day, but the basic guidelines apply to fewer than a third of Americans. The rest — 70% of the population — are middle aged, elderly, or African-American. This huge majority should get less than 1,500 milligrams of salt per day.

But the average American gets more than twice the recommended daily dose of sodium: 3,466 milligrams of sodium per day. This means we’re at risk of dangerously raising our blood pressure.

That high blood pressure increases our risk of heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. The CDC calculates that if everyone followed sodium-intake guidelines there would be as many as 120,000 fewer cases of heart disease and up to 66,000 fewer strokes each year.

What can we do? Kuklina says a lot is up to the food industry. But there’s a lot we can do ourselves: